Soul Regret
by Smittenwhenbitten
Summary: If Edward had known Bella would turn his quiet life upside down and inside out as she did, what would have happened to Bella if no one could convince him to stay around and they never met? Would her soul still yearn for her mate?


_If Alice had seen the future, and Edward had known Bella would turn his life upside down and inside out as she did, what would have happened to Bella if no one could convince him to stay and meet her? If his self loathing was so strong that he wouldn't allow himself or his family to meet her and love her?_

_If you are lucky enough to have a soul mate exist in the world, surely you would always feel them? Surely you would know something was missing? _

I love you.

I love you so very, very much.

Whoever you are. Whoever you were. Where ever you ended up.

I love you.

And I am so sorry I never knew you except as the missing side of my soul. The part of me I yearned for and cried for and ached for and never found.

I needed you. And you must have needed me too. How could it have been any other way? The pull to find you, it was always so strong, for so many years. It remains so even now, though I have not the strength to even lift my head from this pillow.

My heart clenched so strongly in my chest night after night, my dreams of a faceless lover becoming more urgent the longer I was without you. How could you not have felt that too? The slide of skin against skin, the tingling awareness that we shared. Our eyes meeting - when I woke I never recalled them, try as I might. But I knew they were the most beautiful eyes I had ever seen. They looked into me so deeply and with so much love and unfailing trust...I remembered that. But not their colour, their shape. I knew they smiled into me, as I smiled into you. Two into one; eternal.

Oh lover. How I miss you even now, in the gathering darkness of my mind.

What choice did I make, what turn did I take in my life that took me away from you? Were you even there to meet? Or did some tragic accident take you from me before I ever had the chance to know you? Or you to know me?

I feel wistful as the moonlight streams down on me through my bedroom window, lighting the icy white covers of my bed bright enough for me to see. The street outside is silent and cold. So like my heart. Empty. Cleft in two. I never knew it to feel whole.

I tried once, to feel that wholeness. I fell in love, and convinced myself that he was you. Needless to say he was not. He never even came close. I wasted so much time blinding myself to that truth.

Was that my mistake? Did I give myself to the wrong man, forever ending any chance we never had?

Oh, my love. I can almost feel your lips ghosting over my collar bone, and I lift my hand to press your cheek to mine. My fingers slip softly through the flesh of my dream and alight on my own cheekbone. The shiver spirals down my spine, and wherever you are, I know you feel it too. Perhaps even now you toss in your bed.

Perhaps not, too. Probably not. I am often fanciful, these days.

Why should I not be, when fancy is all I have?

I sigh again.

It is so hard now - with the film that never lifts from my eyes masking everything in shadows and light, insubstantial shapes that tease my memory, the fog in my mind - to know what is real.

We will never be, this lifetime. My empty heart is stuttering to a close now, my white hair thin and soft on the pillow under my head, the thin parchment of my skin dry under my questing fingers.

There is no one to come and see me home. No one to hold my hand and ease me from this life. Mother and Father, dead and gone. A couple of friend's children (I never did have children of my own) who are nice enough to remember a lonely old woman, and send a card at Christmas. I asked the doctor not to bother them. They have lives and families of their own. And it would make no great difference, in the end. My soul still would keen quietly, calling. No one who mattered would come.

I never found you, you see.

Not this time around. I lie and wait for my heart to stumble and halt, knowing it will be soon. Perhaps before dawn. I will welcome it, when it comes, the ending of this exile alone.

Not a bad life, in truth. I suppose it is wrong of me to wish it had been different. Ungrateful. I worked hard, was loved by my family, and loved in return. I lived most of my life alone, but even so there was happiness. Not joy, perhaps. But happiness, yes. A level of quiet contentment, once I had accepted it. That you weren't coming to me, not this time, not in this life.

Not this time.

I am fairly sure you had before. The dreams were too intense for them not to have been real once. Who knew, maybe I was servant girl who fell in love with a woodcutter? I could picture you in the outdoors, breathing deeply of the clean air, muscled and strong. Or perhaps you were a scribe, and I a bakers lass, your long fingers shaping my face. Who knew? Who knew...

Once upon a lifetime ago you were mine...

Darkness begins to fill the clouds in my eyes, and my chest grows tighter, white pain stealing even the phantom caress of your fingers from mine.

I am coming lover. Look harder for me next time around.

I am always only yours.

_An inhuman shriek of agony and loss sounds through the night, and a nurse looking fearfully through a window registers a flash of bronze in the moonlight before recognizing the flat tone of a cardiac monitor and hurries away to help. _

**A/N Depressing sort, aren't I? But then again, if you had a soul mate out there, would you settle for something less? I love the Edward character dearly, but really, did he honestly think it would have been better if they'd never met? Please review for me – I do dearly love hearing your thoughts!**

**Oh yeah, and I own nothing, the characters aren't mine...you know the drill.**


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